Each year, I like to research what's being projected to happen in social media marketing for the upcoming year. It's a great way to make adjustments of what we are doing and find out what's being planned for growth and changes. Last year it was all about Facebook and Twitter adding videos to their social media platforms. This year, my review includes projections from Huffington Post, SproutSocial, AllInOneSocial, to mention just a few, and it seems we're still looking at video as a focus, but with a twist.

In every blog I noticed the same mention of live video and live stream. A mention of Snapchat was high on the list as well. In fact, if your target market are the Millennials, embrace Snapchat and keep your eye on Vine, WhatsApp, WeChat, and Kik. The big five will continue to develop their enhancements to keep their real estate.

Huffington Post shared these as Social Media Trends for 2016:

Small(er) data is here. What is meant by this is that it's time to micro-target your audience. Think about what Snickers is doing with their candy bar by recognizing emotions and personalities -- "princess," "crabby." Or how about Coca-Cola recognizing consumers by first-names?

Live broadcasting is becoming the new real-time. Having created a social club site, I know this to be true and have to say, it is much easier than ever to set up live streams for your clients to engage with live broadcasting. Snapchat, Periscope and YouTube can help you make all this happen. Andre Young, from YouEvolvingNow.Com, makes it happen by providing members to be a part of their M.E.N. and W.O.M.E.N. Forums, while they are happening.

The passionate consumer is the new influencer. Remember when the rule of thumb was, it took seven touches to reach out to your consumers. Consumer engagement through social media with comments, shares, and likes not only convert to customers, but help to convert others. One mention that I found interesting was that posts with curated content links generate 33 percent more clicks than original content links. I guess that makes sense because of including information provided from another source and referencing that source. I'm sure this article, when posted on LinkedIn, may have the same result.

GIFs and immersive video are driving forces of engagement. 2016 will be the age of videos and video social networks. Now wait, didn't I say that last year? Well, I guess we can repeat ourselves. Messaging apps and emojis just keep growing. Facebook Messenger continues to make it more fun to connect. A few to check out include: Liketoknow.it, Like2buy. Then there's Twitter and Facebook with its Buy Now buttons. Get ready for Facebook's "M", to help you to personalize your needs. “M” will join forces with Siri, Cortana and Mona.

While visiting All In One Social, top influencers shared the same sentiments that video, live streaming, and visual content will be big in 2016. Animated GIF's and auto-play video will be the normal for social medias and websites.

Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram will begin to push their “Buy Buttons” even more. Ironically, Business Insider reported that active social media users really don't care about the Buy Buttons. In fact only nine percent of respondents on Facebook showed interest. Then again, there was a time when the Internet was ALL FREE advertising and, guess what, it's now all about “pay to play.” My take on this is, we are at the beginning of the Buy Button Era. Somehow Facebook will find a way to MAKE ecommerce businesses HAVE to use Buy Buttons to see any sort of ROI on Facebook. The question will be how will they increase the interest?

Personally, I'm not at all surprised by what has been predicted and look forward to continue to work with our clients who are already using live streaming as part of their social media engagement and are ready to introduce to our other clients who are candidates for live streaming. I also look forward to sharing more about all of these social media methods to engage with you in my future articles.

Alyse Mitten, Head Honcho of Interlace Communications, Inc. | GoMAaVA along with her staff, work with their clients to engage with their customers through websites built with SEO, social media marketing, and email engagement along with print marketing and advertising. We believe in a well-rounded marketing strategy with current and traditional marketing.

Resources:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/layla-revis/social-media-trends-2016_b_8914190.html

http://sproutsocial.com/insights/social-media-trends/

http://www.allin1social.com/blog/social-media-marketing-trends-in-2016

http://www.businessinsider.com/social-media-users-dont-like-buy-buttons-2015-12